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Corvo wrote:You are right! I forgot my Cyberpunk roots
It's like "Spite Damage" from T&T: every six rolled means that 1 point of damage is inflicted, irrispective of armour.

You and me both. CP2020 was my first "official" RPG (i.e. professionally published instead of home-made). I went into AD&D about a year and something later.

I've only skimmed the various armour threads, but I've been thinking about how to improve armour with the minimum amount of rules changes. To wit, here's my proposition:

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Armour gets a new checkbox: Damaged

Characters have a new option in close combat: Absorb Impact. When a character receives Endurance damage in close combat, the player may elect to nominate a piece of armour to absorb the impact. If the player does so, the damage is reduced by an amount equal to the encumbrance value of the armour piece. That armour piece then becomes damaged. Damaged armour may not be used to absorb impacts.

Protection Tests: Add the following verbage to this section. If the character has pieces of armour that are damaged, the protection test is made as if the character is Weary.

Add a new piece to the Fellowship Phase:

Repair Armour During the fellowship phase, the characters undertake to repair any armour that has been damaged. Erase any checkmarks from the damaged status boxes.

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What do you guys think? If necessary, Repair Armour could be done during an Adventuring Phase, if the PCs are in a suitable place. The goal, of course, is to give players who elect heavy armour a benefit. In fact, I'd be amenable to deleting the protection test effect... that would reduce fiddlyness and you could still only take the effect three times (armour, helm and shield) during an adventuring phase, with diminishing returns each time (because everyone would always damage their armour first, then their shield, then their helm).

Zed,

Once again you've offered something really interesting. (To me, at least.)

May I offer a further refinement, at the risk of complication?

Your armor has "Endurance" equal to it's encumbrance. Instead of losing its protection after one absorption, protection decreases by 1d for every 4 points absorbed, until it is repaired. But its encumbrance stays fixed, even if protection drops to zero.

So a Hauberk starts at 20. If it absorbs 5 points of damage its protection drops to 3D. Which means you're probably not going to use it that way except in a near-emergency.

I'd make repairs a bit easier, though. Maybe any time that you get a full rest in a safe place, with facilities and expertise available.

So basically your armor gives you an endurance pool equal to its encumbrance, but you have to weigh its use against reduced protection and potentially longer "heal" times.

I like that. A lot.

I like this too, but beware that Encumbrance can be reduced by 2 or more with Rewards, making paradoxically the armor weaker.

I would simply state that the character rolls for his damage reduction an amount of dices equal to the Protection dices of the armor: the result is the amount of damage absorbed.

The drawback may be: a) the armor is now damaged and all Protection tests are made as if weary (but it's a half drawback, since it erases when the character is weary); b) the armor now rolls 1d less for Protection rolls (and maybe for more damage absorption rolls: multiple uses reduce further the dices until the armor is completely useless).

@zedturtle

As a general rule, I don't like "ablative armour" concept. But that's just a matter of taste. I think your rule is fine.
I like that it makes Helm even more desirable.
My only doubt: isn't the armour ablating too quickly for what's worth? The Fatigue "cost" of wearing armour is already considerable. Then again, maybe it's just me balking at ablative armour

Rocmistro wrote:Ahhhh!!!!

You guys are going WAY off track with the last few posts. Keep in mind what the problem is!

The problem is that their diminishing returns on protection rolls do not even come close to balancing against their high encumbrance values. The goal is to make the heavier armors more relevant by giving them more reason for being.

Stick to the problem and find a solution for it. Going overboard requires you to retweak EVERYTHING.

Problem Statement: Heavier Armors aren't worth it (by "heavy" I assume we are talking about all the mail armors; ie, those in the 3d-5d range.)

Abstract Solution: Make them a "bit" better.

Possible Solution 1: Add Damage Reduction Component. Ok cool. But why are we talking about DR in the 4-6 range and why are we discussing it for all armors? Fix the MAIL armors, by giving it 1 / 2 / 3 DR respectively done.

Possible Solution 2: Lower the encumbrance value of mail armors, but have failed travel rolls generate higher fatigue. (I would put them at 11/14/16 for +1/2/3 fatigue respectively.)

Possible Solution 3: Have mail armors give bonuses to "knockback" of +1/2/3 respectively. Nothing else about knockback changes.

I really think that's the realm of adjustments you need to stick with, so that you don't end up re-adjusting the entire book.

Rocmistro, I was under the impression I was discussing my houserules, but your persuade roll is already changing my opinion... )

Joking aside, there had been some threads already about the armour. I opened this thread to illustrate the solution I adopted, a solution that is just part of a more extensive set of changes (I refrained from derailing other threads).

Are you sure that you can change just one piece of the rules and...( a) solve your stated problem (b) don't mess with the other rules (c) don't mess with the perceived game balance?

Point "C" isn't so trifle, there are already people here that raised questions like "what about the toughest dwarf of M-e?" Or "what about hobbits and woodmen?".

We agree there is a problem with armour. Elfcrusher's simulations showed us that it's more a liability than an asset.
I'm not sure that this problem can be solved without addressing other matters. Like Defensive stance being the only worthy stance once you reach 3d skill.

As another wrote earlier, I'm not antagonizing you here: I'm here to share opinions and I'm eager to know yours

By the way, of your options the one I prefer is n.1. It mess with rules symmetry, and that's a shame. I was thinking about going this way: "3 leather armours, with 2-3-4 d6 protection; and 3 chain armour, with 2-3-4 d6 protection AND 1-2-3 damage reduction"
Thoughts about this one?

Corvo wrote:@zedturtle

As a general rule, I don't like "ablative armour" concept. But that's just a matter of taste. I think your rule is fine.
I like that it makes Helm even more desirable.
My only doubt: isn't the armour ablating too quickly for what's worth? The Fatigue "cost" of wearing armour is already considerable. Then again, maybe it's just me balking at ablative armour

Well, if we don't penalize armour protection tests (which I am increasingly convinced we should not do) then what we have done is added a new feature to armour that is usable once an Adventuring Phase, gets better with heavier armour and has a minimum of bookkeeping. I understand Elfcrusher's desire to have armour degrade but it's just too much bookkeeping for me.

I suppose that we could specify that armour had a number of damage checkboxes equal to its "D" value (or equal to 1 in the case of shields and helms). I'm not very much in favor of that idea, however.

I can't say I'm in favor of more bookkeeping either, but absorbing one blow, once per adventure, followed by even less useful armor, doesn't seem like something I'd use unless it were the last fight before a Fellowship phase. And even then, if I have to use the phase repairing...?

What just occurred to me is that armor could get damaged, as per zed's rules, anytime you roll a sauron on a protection test. Of course, that rule by itself would make armor even worse than it is, but I like the idea that sometimes your armor gets damaged.

Woodclaw wrote:All very true, but at this point I would consider if it won't be better to keep the turn loss penalty.
Aside from that I would suggest that the TN should be 10+the opponents Attribute level instead of 14, so that more dangerous opponents will still hit harder.

In the end you convinced me Woodclaw, maybe the turn loss penalty should stay and the armor just add some damage reduction on top of the halving. The rule then would become:

Knockback house rule: In addition to halving the Endurance loss, the character can also make a Protection check (TN 10 + Attribute Level of the attacker).

- If he fails, the character loses a point of Hope.
- On a Ordinary success, he ignores 1 additional point of damage from the blow.
- On a Great success, he ignores 2 additional points of damage from the blow.
- On a Extraordinary success, he ignores an additional amount of damage equal to 3 or to his Body score value. (A dwarven Ancient Hauberk may let his wearer use his favourite score of Body to determine the Damage reduction)

Rule symmetry with combat maneuvers, no book keeping, heavy armor now more valuable while not making the game broken. What else?

@Michebugio

Now we have just to wait for Elfcrusher to implement it in his simulator, to discover if it's enough to turn armour from a death-trap to an asset